


Not Quite A Little Mermaid Story

by Saya_Layla



Category: Katekyou Hitman Reborn!
Genre: Alternate Universe - Gods & Goddesses, Beaches, Bittersweet, Fluff and Angst, Growing Up, Happy Ending, Immortality, Little Mermaid Elements, M/M, Ocean, Swimming, marine biologist Tsuna
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-14
Updated: 2020-12-14
Packaged: 2021-03-11 01:53:57
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,835
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28067328
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Saya_Layla/pseuds/Saya_Layla
Summary: Just snippets of how Colonnello, a mermaid (or is he?) met a young child by the sea one day and how they both grew to love each other.
Relationships: Colonnello/Sawada Tsunayoshi
Comments: 9
Kudos: 36





	Not Quite A Little Mermaid Story

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Lessia_Churlstorn](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Lessia_Churlstorn/gifts).



> So as we wait for the Yandere Series' Arc 2's final chapter, Saya decided to write this stupid oneshot. It was a dare/challenge or whatever one may call it by a friend from my server so anyway, I decided to like take it up because I swear to god, I know how to write fluff.
> 
> So anyway, I'll be taking uh prompts or challenges for KHR now while I wait for the edited versions of the Yandere series <333\. Pls join my server too btw because I'm more active there than anywhere else in the whole wide world.
> 
> [Saya's Safe Space!](https://discord.gg/FDrcabdpYd)
> 
> Anyway! This oneshot is beta-d and edited so see you soon! Enjoy because I certainly enjoyed writing this :3

**1.**

A child. 

That was the first thought that came into Colonello’s mind at the sight of a brown-haired child who met his eyes with curiosity-filled orbs. 

The child didn’t take a step back at the sight of him. He knows what he looks like, as much as he would like to think he looks unthreatening compared to his brethren. Emerging from the waves, his blonde hair drips from the waters that he calls home, his eyes a sharp cold blue, deep and mysterious like the depths of his domain. He also knows that he looks dangerous. From the sharp fangs he has to the scales that are littered from the edges of his eyes and chest to the large fins and tail behind him, he’s truly terrifying. 

And yet this child didn’t run away from him. He just stood there, holding his ball close to his stomach as he took small steps towards the God. A child’s curiosity. He watched as the child waddled closer to the waves, eyes wide open and entranced by what he saw.

Colonnello wouldn’t fault him. It’s not every day that one would see a God in their natural domain. And he is, afterall, the most handsome God despite what Reborn, that bastard, would say.

“Mister!” The child called out for him, waving his hand without fear. “Mister!” Colonello couldn’t help but arch a brow at the audacity of this child who barely looks like he reaches his hips. “Misteeeeeeeeeeer!”

He wonders if it’s too late to go back to his palace and stay there for a few more hundred years. But by the time he turned around and dive, he felt something hit his back. It was the same soft rubber ball that the child had held, floating in front of him. 

The colors that reminded him of that sneaky bastard, Reborn and it angered him. He turned around, about to throw the ball back to the kid and teach him a lesson. But something stopped him. 

The child had a bright smile on his face, brighter than the sun that Reborn rules over. He was still waving at him, not minding the fact that he was getting wet from the seaspray and waves. 

“Mister! Play with Tsu-kun please?” 

Tsu-kun. Is that this… gremlin’s name? But it sounded more like the nicknames Luce would give them than a proper name.

“Pleaseeeeee?” The child yelled out from the shore and with his supernatural vision, he could see how tears glistened from the corners of his eyes. 

Maybe it was a sudden whim. Or Luce was rubbing off him. But he decided to come nearer to the shore, laying down on the sand just in front of the kid.

“Stop crying,” he ordered him, his hand putting the ball right by the feet of the child. “Now who do you think you are to order this God around?”

The child immediately brightened, the tears that were about to fall from his eyes forgotten just like that. 

‘ _ Crocodile tears,’  _ Verde’s voice reminded him.  _ ‘Fake tears, basically.’ _

“Tsu-kun’s name is Tsu-kun!” He sighed at what the child said, now realizing that the child’s name was basically a nickname. “Mister, will mister play with Tsu-kun?” The child asked again and the God didn’t know what to do. 

Children have always been quite perceptive things, a thing he knows the most considering he had played with Luce’s children when they were young, and when the child-  _ Tsu-kun _ , sensed his hesitation, he had proceeded with the waterworks.

Big droplets of water fell like raindrops on what seemed to be puffy and bite-able cheeks. Colonello immediately felt bad, not wanting an adorable child to cry because of him. He could hear Luce already at the corner of his mind, screaming at him on why he made a child cry.

“Fine, We will play with you.”

  
  


**2.**

Tsuna, when he was younger, came to Colonnello, waddling towards the God who was waiting for him at the shallow waters of the beach, floaties attached to his arms. 

He can’t believe he’s doing this. An Arcobaleno God spending time with a human is already unimaginable. But a God helping a human learn how to swim? Now that is something that his brethren will hold above his head for many centuries to come.

“Nello won’t let Tsu-kun drown?” Tsu-kun asks, looking at him with tears in his eyes, the waves lapping at his thighs.

“We will not let that happen.” It will never happen. As long as he lives, no harm will come to the child in front of him in his domain.

Tsuna trusted him enough to nod and waddled closer, shivering at the sensation of the cold waters reaching his chest. 

“We will protect you,” Colonnello swam closer, his hands pulling at the child to deeper waters. “Start kicking, Tsu-kun,” he reminded the child. It wasn’t the first time he began teaching the child. After a close call where Tsuna almost drowned, Colonnello decided to teach him how to swim so he could enjoy the beauty of his domain and care for it as much as it cares for Tsuna.

Tsuna nodded, hands trembling as he began making splashes with his legs. He trusts the God enough to know that he will not let Tsuna drown. 

“Tsu-kun, the ocean will not harm you.” He told the child, letting go slowly but still holding his hands underneath the water in case. “It will protect you.”

He knows that the child is too young to understand him but that doesn’t stop him from continuing.

“It will answer to your call, it will guide you and heal you.”

If Lal were to hear the words he was saying, he knows the long lecture he’d receive.“You shouldn’t be saying those words to a human!” She would yell at him, irises blazing with the fury of storm clouds.

Tsuna is a human. He knows that the most.

“It will not let any harm come to you.”

The soft stretchy skin in his hands is a constant reminder of that. The way his heart beats compared to his own is a reminder of the difference between the child and him. The lack of magic flowing in the child’s veins is a reminder that he and the child are different.

“It will love you as much as I do.”

  
  


**3.**

Sawada Tsunayoshi. 

That’s the name of the kid who began visiting him every day, making him,  _ Colonnello of the waves and waters _ , God of the ocean and the depths, play with him with a threat of crying that he knows Luce will hear from Heaven.

He would watch as Tsuna splashed water on him, not minding that he would end up getting splashed by a literal wave. The child would still smile at him brightly, tugging at his jewelries to get his attention.

“Mister! Tsu-kun has to go soon,” Tsuna decided to say once he had nestled in the warm arms of the God who was leaning against a rock, hiding both of them from prying eyes. 

He didn’t know how he got there, in that position every day after play time. The child cradled in his arms as they waited for his mother to pick him up to go home. It would always end with Tsuna in his arms as he told the child stories of the ancient time.

A time where he was still free to roam around the lands, with legs like those of a human. Where magic was free to be used and could be seen by anyone. A time where the words of Gods, his brethren, would be taken seriously.

But those times were long passed. 

“Tsu-kun’s going where?” He asked, playing with the child’s soft hair, a frown on his lips that twisted his charming face. 

It was the first time in centuries that he had the chance to talk to someone outside his brethren, to a human without fear in their eyes. 

“School!” Tsuna pouted at him, raising his head from fiddling with the necklace around Colonello’s neck to look at him. “Tsu-kun doesn’t like school!”

School… Colonnello forgot that humans have a new education system nowadays and this child in his arms is already around the age that he’d be considered a student.

“But school is where Tsu-kun may learn a lot,” Colonnello said, poking Tsuna’s cheeks with a grin. He may not like humans, with a few exceptions but he knows a lot about this place called school from what Luce and Verde talked about during gatherings.

Schools where new things will be taught easily to humans unlike how it would be from word of mouth back in the old days.

“But Tsu-kun doesn’t wanna leave Nello!”

If Colonnello was a lesser God, he would have immediately bitten the soft cheeks of the child out of sheer adorableness, but Colonnello isn’t just any God. He is one of the Nine Gods of the Arcobaleno. He is stronger than his own instincts so he settles with patting the child at his back.

“We will still be here.” He assured the child.

He has grown to like the child over the past few days. He was a breath of warmth and sunshine on the days where he was reminded of his mistakes and lack of power.

“Promise Tsu-kun?” The child held out his pinky. Is this the rumored pinky promise that he had heard from Luce quite so often?

Colonello stared at the little digit, eyes darkening at the thought of making a promise. It was a promise that made him end up like this. Chained to his once happy home, unable to travel and go out. A promise to provide for humanity without holding anything back. 

“Nello?” A voice drags him from the dark thoughts that often plague his mind, soft and filled with concern that he knows is genuine. The big brown eyes stared at him, glistening in the rays of the sunset. 

A promise. But Colonnello doesn’t mind making a promise with this child. Not when he could see it in the depth of his soul. The sincerity and pureness that he has not seen for a long long time.

“Alright then, We will make a promise with Tsu-kun,” Colonello nodded, hooking the child’s pinky with his. The heaviness of such a simple promise weighed down on his soul. 

“I, Colonnello of the Oceans and Seas will wait for Tsu-kun every day here in this very spot.”

  
  


**4.**

Tsuna would always end up by the beach every summer and he would always be there waiting for him. If his brethren could see him now, they would worry for him. Falling for a human whom he had watched over since childhood. Making a promise with said human to stay in the same place to wait for him. 

And speak of the angel and he would appear.

“Nello!! Look what I got!” Tsuna grew up quite splendidly, and this is coming from the God who had watched Tsuna grow from a crybaby to the confident student council president he is now. 

The teen was waving a bag of snacks up in the air as he ran towards him. “Look!” The God pressed the bag away from his face to stare at the excited eyes of his… friend. 

“And what are We looking at?” He asks, his tail flicking water towards the teen who pouts. He hasn’t changed a bit at all. 

“Remember the time you said that you haven’t had any snacks?” Tsuna began saying, plopping himself beside the God, making sure not to accidentally hit his tail. He laid out snacks in front of the god, from chips to biscuits to candy.

Colonello thought back to that conversation about a week ago before nodding, watching in amusement at how Tsuna carefully ripped the packaging. “Of course We remember,” opening his mouth, he lets the child feed him.

“Of course of course,” Tsuna nodded along, eating some for himself. “So basically I decided, what if I let Nello explore the beauty that is human snacks?’

Colonnello doesn’t have the heart to tell him that he already knows what most of these taste like from Luce’s disturbing human fascination. 

“Is that so?” The god took the pocky and looked at the box carefully. He wanted to make sure that it looked like the first time he saw such a thing. The memory of Luce forcing every one of them to do the pocky game doesn’t exist. The memory doesn’t exist. Nope. Not at all.

He ate them slowly, savoring the artificial flavouring, not minding the way Tsuna leaned on his shoulder. His fluffy hair tickled the God but he let the human lean on him. He listened to Tsuna chat away about how he and his friends decided to make a club dedicated to protecting wildlife and ocean life. He talked about how he almost fell down the stairs again to which Colonnello splashed him with water, making sure not to get the snacks wet. He talked about his friends at school, about how they all think he’s amazing when he really isn't. He talked about not being able to go to the beach after he starts college, even during school breaks.

“College?” Colonello asked, not knowing that word. Fear thrummed through his veins at the thought of Tsuna not being able to visit him. He doesn’t want to spend every day alone again. Going up to the surface to wait all day only to realize that Tsuna won’t be coming that day. He hates it.

Tsuna nodded, still talking about what course he was planning to take and completely unaware of what the God beside him was feeling. 

“But I’ll return!” Tsuna’s hands cupped his cheeks. If it were any other person, Colonnello would have sliced their limbs off, but this is Tsuna. The Tsuna who made sure to return every summer with a lot of stories to tell. The Tsuna who didn’t know what Colonnello really was but still accepted him. The Tsuna who would let Colonnello sit by his side,where his mind thought about the past, only for Tsuna to talk, filling up the silence and distracting him from memories of bloodshed and betrayal.

“Nello, I promise that I’ll return!”

Another promise. Colonnello wondered if Tsuna learned how promises are dangerous towards a God, especially to a God of his caliber. But he couldn’t help but hook his pinky with Tsuna. A sick, heavy feeling chained and pulled his soul deeper into the abyss.

“We will hold you to that then.”

  
  


**5.**

He guided Tsuna through the reef, watching with amusement as Tsuna pointed out bright corals and the school of fishes all around them. They went swimming before but never like this.

Tsuna was smiling at him, bubbles of air rising from his mouth and for a moment Colonnello wants time to stop right here. Tsuna is protected in his domain. Protected and safe and happy. The instincts that he so desperately tried to bury rearing their ugly head again.

_ Make him stay. _

He held out a hand for Tsuna to take.

_ He was already yours the moment you made a promise with him. _

Tsuna pointed upwards, signaling that he needed to come up for air. He nodded like he would always do, taking Tsuna’s hand and swimming upwards.

_ What are you waiting for? _

He felt arms wrap around him the moment they surfaced, the bright shining grin greeting him once more. “Nello!” Tsuna yelled out, almost pushing them both underwater once again if not for the hands Colonnello puts on Tsuna’s waist.

“It’s beautiful.”

_ You’re more beautiful. _

Maybe it was his instincts that told him to do it. Or maybe he was finally tired of hiding his feelings. But seeing Tsuna dripping wet, the shine in his eyes brighter than the sun above them and his smile curving his lips, revealing the dimples that he so desperately tried to hide by not smiling so widely.

_ You’re beautiful. _

He presses his lips lightly against him, just a soft brush of lips, the saltiness of the sea not clouding the faintest taste of chapstick that Tsuna once smeared on his lips. 

_ I love you. _

And Tsuna kisses back, his hands behind Colonnello’s head, pushing the God downward to meet his lips.

_ I love you. _

  
  


**6.**

Three years. It’s been three years since he has last seen Tsuna.

Since that kiss by the beach. 

He wonders what he is getting out of waiting for a human that he has no means of contacting. He doesn’t even know if Tsuna is still alive. His powers have weakened to the point that he barely feels what’s happening all around the world.

He just stays there by the cove, the same cove that he and Tsuna would hide in for hours, talking about the world, his classes, Colonnello’s brethren. 

He misses him.

He already had his siblings coming over. He would find traces of Luce all around his palace, her scent of flowers lingering enough to know that she had been there. He woke up once or twice with Reborn on the edge of the bed, healing him from the damage that humans are creating. 

Lal would invite herself over most of the time to the cove, lecturing him on how he was basically killing himself by waiting for a human that won’t even appear.

He knows what he is doing and it may be stupid but he knows.

Tsuna has never broken a promise. 

So neither will he turn his back on the promises he made with Tsuna.

  
  


**7.**

There’re people outside. 

He could hear them from inside the cove. Lots of people with machines. 

What are they doing? 

Colonnello couldn’t help looking up tot the surface, barely seen from the distance from where he was to the shoreline. He looked at the people building something, creating noises at the once peaceful playground of safety that he and Tsuna had played.

They’re ruining it. 

Colonnello tried to bury the anger and despair in his heart, telling himself to not act like a child. Blinking away tears, he dove. Tsuna wasn’t coming today either.

If he stayed any longer, he could have seen him. The person he was so desperately waiting for walking towards the seashore. A bit older than Colonello could have remembered, but it was no doubt him. 

Warm caramel eyes, looking out at the sunset, searching through the waves as if trying to find something. Or someone.

  
  


**8.**

Colonnello woke up to the long lost comfort of power in his veins. Something in him had changed. He hadn’t noticed it before due to the slow increase of his power coming back to him but now it was a large burst of energy that came back. 

With this amount of power now, he can…

He can search for Tsuna on land. He will be able to accompany Tsuna now. 

_ Tsuna, wait for me. _

  
  


**9.**

He stood there, just feeling the sand between his toes, arms opened wide as he took a deep breath and relished the warmth the sun gave him. He’s free. His brother’s winds caressed him gently while he walked the shoreline, ignoring the gaping people looking at him for his bizarre outfit. 

He doesn’t care about what humans think of him. He only cares how to get to Tsuna. He stood there thinking, hitting the sand with his stick. He needed to find a way to get to Tsuna.

“Who are you?”

A man’s voice disturbs his line of thinking, making him raise his head to glare into green eyes. 

“Who are you to ask My name?” A human, wearing those suits that Reborn likes wearing. His silver hair makes him remember the silver bracelet he prepared for Tsuna. 

He watched as the human tried to make words before walking forward again, leaving the man to chase after him. 

“I said who are you?” The man grabs him by his arm, everything in him screaming to make the human know who he just touched, but a voice stops him.

“Nello?” A soft familiar voice. A voice he keeps on hearing in his dreams. Again and again. A voice he has been yearning to hear from again for years.

He turned around and there he was. He was taller now, and had gained a bit of weight too. But there is no mistaking it. It was Tsuna. The same Tsuna with the warm smile and curious eyes. The same Tsuna who would take his time in explaining about what was happening in the human world.

It was the same Tsuna who threw himself into his arms right then, pressing their lips together, and for a long time, everything seems okay. Everything was at peace.

**10.**

“Well, do you like it?” Tsuna asked him, his hand still holding Colonnello's hand as if he was afraid that the God would disappear. He had just given the blonde a tour around the new research facility dedicated to protecting ocean life and the ocean.

Tsuna was blushing, his cheeks a slight pink and Colonnello couldn’t help but lean forward and brush his lips against them. “I love it.” He had kept the memory of Tsuna trying to hide small signs of it being offered to Colonnello, the God of the seas, from the statue in front of the building to the small protection wards that his priests put up.

Tsuna grinned, squeezing his hand tighter. “I wanted to do something for you.” He whispers, just in front of this huge window showing the sea and the sun setting.

“I know.” He waited for so long that thoughts and doubts had plagued his mind, but he couldn’t have been happier that he decided to wait in the end.

Tsuna looked like he was about to say something again, opening his mouth before deciding not to. But Colonnello knew what he was about to say.

“It’s okay.” He embraced him in his arms, patting his back just like how he would when Tsuna was a bit younger. “You’re here now.”

That’s right. Tsuna is here now. By his side.

All of the other things don't matter. He will face them with Tsuna at a later time.

“Tsuna. I love you and I will continue on doing so.”

The weight of his words didn’t weigh him down like his previous promises. It instead filled him with an unimaginable warmth.

“I love you too.”

If the Colonnello from those centuries ago could see him now, he would scoff at the idea of love and loving a human, but Colonnello has grown. 

“Like a lot lot, so much that I just-”

He pressed against his lips again, stopping Tsuna from going on and on about how much he loves him. He knew that, and for a long time, everything in his mind was quiet, serenity filling him.

What a fitting ending for a God who lost everything to finally get everything back.

  
  


**Author's Note:**

> I SWEAR TO GOD I TRIED MY HARDEST IN WRITING THIS AS SOMETHING FLUFFY BUT THE PLOT CALLED AND QWQ QWQ QWQ QWQ
> 
> [Saya's Safe Space!](https://discord.gg/FDrcabdpYd) Please yeet to this discord server if one wishes to gib a prompt or something to Saya qwq. 
> 
> That's all for today! See you guys in the next update or oneshot or something qwq. Stay safe and take care! And Lessia, pls don't put me in jail qwq. Love you all!!


End file.
